Akamai recorded double-digit revenue growth in the fourth quarter and claimed it set a new all-time high traffic peak.
During the company’s Tuesday earnings call, CEO Tom Leighton said that on November 10, traffic on the Akamai platform reached 181 terabits per second, 50% greater than the peak in 2019. He added that Akamai already exceeded last year's traffic peak last week, according to a Motley Fool transcript.
“We believe the pandemic has accelerated consumer usage of the Internet in areas like OTT video, gaming and e-commerce, and we believe this usage pattern will likely persist going forward,” said Leighton. “However, we expect to see traffic continue to grow in 2021 but at a rate more in line with pre-2020 historical levels.”
Akamai’s media and carrier division revenue for the fourth quarter was $408 million, up 15% year over year. Division revenue for 2020 was $1.532 billion, up 15% year over year.
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Akamai warned that beginning in the second quarter of 2021 it will start to see tougher traffic comparisons due to the significant ramp up from 2020.
“Make it a bit more of a challenging year from a CDN perspective, but we still think we're in a great position, and we've got some really good tailwinds going on,” said Akamai CFO Ed McGowan.
Akamai’s security business also continues to grow and Leighton said that some of the major media companies are Akamai’s biggest buyers of security solutions. He said his company’s media customers are concerned with content security and accounts being taken over, which he said is driving demand for Akamai’s bot management and account protection capabilities.
Akamai’s cloud security solutions revenue for the fourth quarter was $296 million, up 24% year over year, and $1.062 billion for 2020, up 25% year over year.